Nathan Leigh

Nathan Leigh

Age: 31SeniorHometown: Oshkosh, WIMajor: International studies with emphases in global and national security; European studies and political scienceMinor: Political science

Senior Nathan Leigh said the inner workings between the people and the government, and how that interacts with foreign policy and national security has always interested him. “My career goal is to do an intelligence analyst position for a federal agency or for a consultant working on policy,” said Leigh.

Leigh served in the Marines for four and a half years before becoming a student, and he said he was interested in why someone enlists in the military and does different tasks for the military. “Some of the theories I can look at and I can see some cases where I had people above me who were actually applying these theories, where I saw whether they failed or were successful,” Leigh said. “Sometimes in some of my classes when they are talking specifically about something, I can relate because in some instances I was actually there.”

For Leigh the political research circles, which are organized by professors Tracy Slagter and Dru Scirbner who use them as a way for students and professors to bounce ideas off of each other and work through problems on papers, were an important aspect of his political science courses. “The political science research circles are also a nice thing that other classes didn’t have,” Leigh said. “And the fact that if I have a specific question that might not pertain to class, I can walk in and discuss it with the professor, and that’s really nice.”